Reviews

The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

lizmart88's review

challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

These characters made me so mad (in a good way!). They continue to make poor decisions and we (the reader) watch it happen. The story is a little slow, but enough happens to keep it moving. 

ammcnamara's review

challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

The parallel story between Philadelphia and Bonaparte demonstrates beautifully the different was people can be unsettled from their homes. I thought the first part of Ava and Touissant’s story was a little too slowly placed but really picked up once they got out of Glenn Avenue. I was very invested in Dutchess’s story from the start 

ladyinverse's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

there's another review that sums up perfectly my feelings on it. thank you for the aid 👇

https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/59572a8d-8014-4fd3-ae26-8509961cfd79

dominiquejl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Let me just say- a book doesn’t have to be enjoyable to be valuable! I don’t have to enjoy a book to be glad it exists. But the fact of the matter is…I didn’t enjoy this book. I think you have the best chance of enjoying it if you don’t do the audiobook- like many books with oscillating timelines, you’re not well-served by audio narration, especially if they choose to have one narrator do all the parts. I think they really should have had two readers here. I think if you’re newer to the idea of generational trauma and connecting that to larger overtures of Black history, this might be an especially valuable book for putting together the pieces of how the violence of the postbellum South and the violence of the post-Great Migration North feed into one another. But as a Black historian, I feel confident with both the history and the emotional resonance for these topics already. I think you enjoy this book even more knowing what happened in Philly with MOVE, and thinking of Ava and Toussaint’s story as explaining what leads up to that point. So I’m really in it for the storytelling, but I just didn’t love the storytelling here- the pace would speed and then crawl, the characters were well-developed in terms of understanding what motivated them, based on their prior experiences, and how that shaped their relationships and interactions, but less well-developed in terms of their inner selves apart from their circumstances. I wanted a little more of who they were inside their own heads. A lot of the dialogue and description was well-written, I just wish the inner monologue was as captivating. I super wanted to like this book, I’ve heard so many superb things about this author and I love the idea of the subject matter, but I personally really had to fight my way through this one. 

donnalisa's review

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lkf's review

emotional

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

allthaterricka's review

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

4.5

My thoughts about this one are still jumbled up but this was an experience. It probably would’ve been 5 stars if the pacing was different but also I think the pacing was for a reason. 

schray32's review

2.0

I could not get into this. I tried but so much trauma.

nordstina's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The Unsettled reads as almost two separate books to me. Ava and her son have left the fraught home situation they are in and are living in a homeless shelter and much of the beginning of the book is about their life in that shelter and how they try and make do there. Partway through, Ava becomes re-entangled with her son's biological father and their lives are upended by his whims, and they join a cult-like home that he establishes. I just found myself frustrated on what this book wanted to be.

cheyennechemease's review

dark emotional reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0